


It's Not a Passing Fascination

by firethesound



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Banter, Bickering, Community: hd_erised, Drinking, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, H/D Erised 2018, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Magical Theory, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Past major character injury, Pining, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Sexual Tension, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-26 07:53:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17137916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firethesound/pseuds/firethesound
Summary: One of Harry's favourite things is watching Malfoy work.





	It's Not a Passing Fascination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [XxTheDarkLordxX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxTheDarkLordxX/gifts).



> Title from OK Go's "Obsession." A million billion thanks to my beta for helping me wrangle this one into shape and for your general awesomeness, and a million billion more to my cheerleader for keeping me on track. xxthedarklordxx, I was so pleased to have had the chance to write for you! Your sign up reads like a list of my favorite things and I had such fun with this one. I hope you enjoy it! <3

When Harry arrived at the scene of the crime, he found it already crawling with Aurors. Cora's Curiosities was a tiny antique shop down on the quiet end of Diagon, and it was almost incongruous to see it cordoned off with heavy-duty wards and lit up with full-strength _Lumos_ es when the sun wasn’t even up yet. He pushed through the front door in a merry tinkling of bells, had one blissful moment to revel in the warmth of the shop after hustling through the frigid December morning, and then stopped short when his brain caught up with his eyes.

"Was there a murder?" he asked, staring at the spatters of blood across the floor. He'd been startled out of a dead sleep by the Urgent Alert Charm all Aurors had on their badges, and was admittedly not quite fully awake yet… but he could have sworn that he'd been responding to a call about stolen artefacts and not a homicide.

"No," Ron said, passing a paper cup of coffee to Harry, who accepted it gratefully and folded his cold hands around it. "The shop owner came in early this morning and caught her employee in the act. Apparently he's been using her shop as a front for smuggling artefacts for Merlin knows how long."

Harry squinted at the blood on the floor. "And… you're telling me she _didn't_ murder him?"

"Clunked him over the head with a cauldron that—get this—bears the mark of Merlin," Ron said. "He'd been packing it up in a box of regular cauldrons that was supposed to be mailed off via owl post later today. They argued, she grabbed it and—" Ron mimed swinging and clicked his tongue. "He's in St Mungo's getting healed up and they say he'll make a full recovery." He nodded at something over Harry's left shoulder.

Harry turned to followed Ron's gesture and saw a diminutive old witch perched on a tall stool behind the till, being interviewed by another Auror.

"What— _her_? She did _this_?" Harry gaped for a moment before wrestling his gobsmacked expression back under control. She was tiny and if she wasn't already north of 100, Harry would eat his boots.

"That's Cora. Apparently she played Beater for Hufflepuff all seven years she was at Hogwarts," Ron said.

Mid-sip of his coffee, Harry grimaced. "If this is what she can still do, I'd hate to have had to face her across the pitch in her prime." He spotted the blood-spattered cauldron lying off to the side, the mark of Merlin clearly visible on its side. "I bet whoever they send from Processing is going to love this. Do you know who's on call?"

"The case is high priority enough that they called us in at 6am on our day off," Ron said. "I'll give you one guess who they've called in to process the scene."

Harry's stomach did a flip, of elation or dread or some strange mixture of both. "Who?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

A gust of cold air swept through the front of the shop as the door burst open and Draco Malfoy stepped inside.

The flip Harry's stomach did this time was definitely elation, because the sight of Malfoy in his uniform _did things_ to Harry. Their paths didn't cross at work terribly often; Malfoy was an Auror Liaison—a catch-all term for the group of people who had extremely specialised skill sets; Malfoy's was Crime Scene Processing. As such, he came out into the field after the action was over and Harry—whose job was to be in thick of it—was already back at the Ministry, neck-deep in paperwork (or, depending on how unlucky he'd been, getting himself patched up at St Mungo's). Unlike the bright scarlet Auror robes, the AL robes were navy blue with a high collar, dark gold braided trim and a long row of tiny brass buttons up the front. A wide belt cinched them in tight at the waist, emphasising Malfoy's narrow hips and long legs. His brisk strides kicked up the hem with each step, showing glimpses of his shiny brown boots.

Malfoy came to a stop by Ron and Harry and looked at the floor, his pale brows creasing in confusion. "Was someone murdered?"

"No," Harry said, as if he hadn't asked that very question not five minutes earlier. "The shop owner caught her employee in the act of using her business as a front to smuggle illegal artefacts. She knocked him over the head with that cauldron."

"And he's not dead? I'm not a Healer, but that seems like an awful lot of— _is that the mark of Merlin_?"

"Artefact number one," Ron said, pointing at it. "Go."

Malfoy gave him a flat look. "You know," he said, "sometimes I almost miss being your partner. And then you very kindly remind me why I left you, by _ordering me about like a Crup_."

"I thought you left me because I couldn't make a decent cuppa?" Ron asked, grinning at Malfoy.

"I thought he left you because he couldn't stand looking at your freckled face," Harry said innocently, and something deep in his chest gave a pleased little flutter when Malfoy snorted in amusement. It made it totally worth it when Ron punched his shoulder.

"One of many reasons, Potter. One of many reasons," Malfoy said, taking a pair of thin black leather gloves from the sturdy case he carried. He set the case down so he could put the gloves on, tugging at the fingers to get them settled just-so. "But really what drove me away was his complete and utter inability to chew a biscuit with his mouth closed."

Ron rolled his eyes. "My table manners are perfect and you know it," he said. "Mum would've murdered me otherwise."

"She would not have," Harry said generously. "If she didn't murder you for the flying car thing, there's not much worse you could do."

"Only because I didn't see her for Christmas hols that year," Ron said. "And by the end of the year she'd finally cooled down about it. Even then, I _still_ got yelled at when I got home."

"I still remember that Howler she sent you…” Malfoy said fondly, carefully tucking the cuff of his gloves beneath the cuffs of his robes, inadvertently giving Harry a teasing glimpse of black ink tattooed across the pale skin of his wrist.

Malfoy's tattoos also did things to Harry.

"I'd imagine that the live performance must have been something to see," Malfoy went on, entirely oblivious to Harry's inner turmoil.

"Something to _hear_ , more like," Ron said.

Malfoy smirked at him as he took out his wand and then, having got himself ready to begin his job, his demeanor shifted as suddenly as a flipped switch. He looked round, gaze catching on the two Junior Aurors lingering in a corner, and another Auror interviewing Cora at the till.

"Potter, clear the scene for me and keep it cleared. Weasley, you're with me. Full briefing, if you don't mind. We'll start at the back and work our way back to the front, I assume he would have used a less conspicuous entrance than the front door…?"

"Right," said Ron, already leading Malfoy back between the tidy rows of shelves. "He came in through the rear entrance. Christopher Thomas, 37, already in Auror custody at St Mungo's…"

Harry sighed a little to himself as he watched them disappear out through the narrow back door. He knew it wasn't a slight that Malfoy had chosen to work directly with Ron and sent Harry off to secure the scene for him while he processed it for physical and magical evidence. Ron and Malfoy had been partnered for three years after they'd been promoted to Junior Auror. Contentious at first, their relationship had quickly settled into a firm friendship that had lasted even beyond Malfoy's sudden career change. Harry had been a little slower to come around on Malfoy. But it had been impossible not to notice that Malfoy worked hard, took his job seriously and had no patience for anyone who didn’t. Harry couldn’t help but respect his work ethic, despite how he felt about the rest of him. That one small thing had been the first crack, and before long, Harry was almost surprised to find that he counted Malfoy as a friend.

Harry's pesky infatuation with Malfoy had come along a couple of years after that.

The two Junior Aurors were easy enough to shoo out the door, but Cora was more difficult to persuade. It was only by virtue of being The Boy Who Lived that Harry managed to convince her to leave the safety of her shop in his capable hands while Malfoy did his work. The Auror interviewing her offered to escort her down to the Ministry to submit her official statement, and that would likely take long enough that Malfoy would be finished by the time she returned.

Scene cleared as instructed, Harry returned to the front of the shop where he took up a post by the front door and set about enjoying his coffee before it got cold.

He'd just finished and Vanished the paper cup when Malfoy and Ron made their way back up to the front of the shop.

"Anything?" he asked quietly. Even though Malfoy didn't seem like he was in the middle of any particularly tricky bit of magic, he could sometimes be rather prickly when someone broke his concentration.

Ron shook his head while Malfoy carefully picked up the cauldron in his gloved hands. "No, his magical signature's all over the shop, but it doesn't seem like he's got anything else stashed here. As far as we can tell, he only brings artefacts in here to ship them off. Malfoy thought he sensed a couple of different magical signatures that might've been from powerful objects, but they're faded to the point they're untraceable…"

"Shame," Malfoy said. He reached into the open case he'd left sitting on the floor and pulled out a large cotton bag layered with protective and neutralising spells. He slid the cauldron inside and cinched the drawstring tight. "Would've made my job so much easier if he'd used this as his base of operations."

As Harry watched, Malfoy lowered the cauldron into the case, then twirled his wand and several glass vials rose up and hovered nearby. Another twirl of his wand and the blood siphoned itself off the floor, passed through several glowing magical filters, and deposited itself neatly drop by drop into the vials. The concentration it took to lift the blood up without tearing apart the rug it'd soaked into was impressive enough, and Malfoy was also Levitating the vials and maintaining the spells used to filter out dirt and other contaminants. And he did it all while making it look effortless. Harry had always had a bit of a thing for competence, and Malfoy was a whole bundle of unwavering control and razor-sharp intelligence wrapped up in unshakable confidence.

Between that and the uniform and the gloves, watching Malfoy at work had provided Harry with enough fantasy material to keep him wanking for the next decade.

"Potter," Malfoy said, jerking Harry from his thoughts. "Will you find out whether the Ministry's procured a warrant to search Thomas' residence yet?"

Suppressing a sigh, Harry sketched out a sarcastic salute. "Yes, sir," he muttered, figuring that Malfoy was too occupied with his fancy spellwork to really be paying attention to him

But apparently he was paying attention, because without looking at him, Malfoy flipped Harry the bird without spilling a single drop of blood, and Harry slipped out the front door.

After the warmth of the shop, the frigid winter air practically slapped Harry across the face, and he made a quiet sound of sadness to himself. December, and already Harry couldn’t wait for spring.

"Oi, you!" he called out to one of the two Junior Aurors he'd evicted from the shop. "I need someone to run to the Ministry and check the status of a warrant."

"I'll do it!" one of them said, clearly eager to get out of the cold even at the expense of running an errand. “For the private residence of Christopher Thomas, yeah?”

Harry confirmed it, and the Junior went hurrying off, and Harry went back into Cora's Curiosities. Malfoy had finished Levitating the blood up from the floor and was stoppering the last of the vials he'd collected it in, and then tucking them safely away into his case. Slipping his wand up his sleeve, Malfoy turned to Harry and raised an eyebrow.

"Anything?" he asked.

"Sent a Junior to go check up on it," Harry said.

Malfoy and Ron did another pass of the shop while they waited, and when the Junior Auror returned, he had the warrant in hand, along with a set of Apparition coordinates.

"Brilliant," Harry said. "Did you look at the coordinates? Got them all right? Brilliant. Get your partner and meet us there, I'll need you to secure the scene. Tell the others that we're done here and are locking it down for the owner's return."

As the lad went back out into the cold, Harry jogged to the back of the shop and waved the parchment at Ron and Malfoy.

"Got it!" he said.

"Brilliant," Malfoy said, snatching the parchment from Harry's hand and snapping it open to read. He passed it off to Ron and then went to fetch his case from where he'd left it. He packed his gloves into it, snapped it shut, and picked it up. "Ready when you are."

Ron held out his elbows—of the three of them, he was the best at Blind Apparition—and Harry and Malfoy each took an arm. Harry took a moment to cast a temporary ward around the shop, and then they were gone.

They appeared on the pavement before a perfectly ordinary little house, on a perfectly ordinary little street, in a perfectly ordinary little neighbourhood. It reminded Harry of Little Whinging, right down to the curtains in the house across the street that had twitched aside at the crack of their Apparition. The Junior Aurors arrived a few seconds later, and together they secured the premises with wards.

Ron and Harry left Malfoy waiting with the Junior Aurors as they set up their wards and walked up the path to the front porch, and even though their records indicated that Thomas lived alone, they followed procedure to the letter: knocking, announcing their presence, and then knocking again before giving one final warning.

A simple _Alohomora_ didn't work, which Harry expected but tried anyway because sometimes they got lucky. But then the standard set of charms that Aurors used to force a lock also didn't work. Looked like Thomas had his own set of customised wards.

"Fuck," Ron sighed. "We're going to need Malfoy for this."

Harry hesitated, then turned on his heel and started back down the path. "Lock's giving us a bit of trouble," he said when he reached where Malfoy was waiting with the two Junior Aurors. "Mind giving us a hand with it?"

Malfoy followed him back up the path to the front door and drew his wand. "You've gone through procedure already?"

Ron nodded, and Malfoy pointed his wand at the lock. Like Harry had, he started with an _Alohomora_ and then worked his way through the standard list of Auror spells. A small part of Harry that remembered their old rivalry wanted to take offense at Malfoy redoing what Harry had already done, like he expected the problem to be that Harry had somehow buggered up casting a third year spell. But this was how Malfoy was at work: he couldn't skip straight to step three if he hadn't already done steps one and two for himself.

None of those spells suddenly worked for Malfoy either, and he hummed, his eyes lighting up. And _this_ was one of Harry's favourite parts of watching Malfoy work. He adored a challenge, and cracking wards was one of his many talents.

With no errand to be sent on this time, Harry settled in to watch Malfoy as he cast. His wand twitched and looped, the fingers of his left hand curling and uncurling and making little jerks like he was plucking at the strings of an invisible harp. Ron sidled up beside Harry and murmured a spell under his breath, looping his wand in a wide circle.

The air within that circle fizzled and shimmered and then Harry had to bite back a gasp, because he could _see_ the magic.

"Thought you'd like that," Ron muttered, folding his arms over his chest and looking tremendously smug.

Harry was too distracted to take any sort of offense at that, captivated by the the glimmering tapestry of magic before him: the wards. Malfoy was wielding threads of his own, merging them with the wards, teasing out a thread here, a thread there, winding his own magic around them before before releasing them and letting them sink back in. Slowly, bit by bit, a doorway began to form, the magic around the front door thinning, with Malfoy's spells forming a doorframe that held the rest back.

"All the way down?" he asked without turning, sweeping the last strand aside and pinning it back with a bit of magic.

"If you don't mind," Ron said, glancing sidelong at Harry.

Malfoy twirled his wand. "I was so hoping you'd say that," he said, and twisted his wand.

Glowing strands of the magic from the wards wound around it like spaghetti round a fork, and then Malfoy _yanked_. The wards unravelled all at once, unspooling themselves and dissipating into little glowing sparks that rapidly faded into nothing

Ron snapped his fingers and the circle of visible magic winked out of existence, gone a split second before Malfoy turned around again, taking a step back and gesturing to the doorway.

"After you, gentlemen," he said gallantly.

This time an _Alohomora_ had the lock obediently turning over and clicking open.

Ron nodded to Harry, all business, and counted down from three under his breath before pushing the door wide open.

The interior of the house was dark and quiet, and Harry slipped inside ahead of Ron, his wand held at the ready as he cleared the living room. Room by room, he and Ron cleared the ground floor, with Harry taking the living room and kitchen, and Ron sweeping through the sitting room at the back of the house and checking out the cupboard under the stairs. They took the upper storey together, two bedrooms and a bathroom. Ron poked his head through the trapdoor to the attic, and then together they went back downstairs.

"All right, Malfoy," Ron called to where Malfoy was lingering near the front door. "Nobody's home, it's all yours. Also, we didn't find a door to the basement."

Malfoy hummed. "Of course you didn’t. Honestly, sometimes the lack of originality of these ne'er-do-well types is bloody astounding."

There was a long moment where Harry marvelled at the fact that he could have such strong feelings for someone who could casually use the word _ne'er-do-well_ in everyday conversation, and then Malfoy was moving off towards the kitchen.

Sighing silently to himself, Harry did his best to put his feelings—his _very inappropriate workplace feelings_ aside as he followed after Malfoy.

The kitchen was small and dated, with ugly yellow tile and matching appliances in avocado green. There wasn't space for a doorway anywhere along its walls, but Malfoy swept over every inch of counter and cupboard with his wand. Frowning, he went over the whole thing again.

Then he left the kitchen, muttering a little to himself as he swept the hallway, then the living room, sitting room, and dining room without turning up anything. Frowning, he tucked his wand away and went back to the kitchen, slowly examining it again.

"Hey," Ron said, pointing at the ceiling. "Looks like someone was a little too enthusiastic with their spellwork here."

"What?" Malfoy snapped, then blinked where Ron was pointing. "Oh. _Oh_." He drew his wand and aimed it at the refrigerator, while Harry leaned around Ron to see what had caught their attention. Several dents and scuff marks marred the plain white surface of the ceiling. " _Wingardium Leviosa_."

Carefully, he lifted the refrigerator and moved it aside, revealing a trapdoor.

"Nice catch, Weasley," he said, stepping back to let Ron and Harry go first. "Obviously I would've found it myself in just another second or two."

"I'm sure you would have," Ron said in a faux-placating tone that was even worse than sarcasm.

Behind him, Malfoy snorted.

Ron lifted up the trapdoor and cast a _Lumos_ down into the darkness, then stepped back to allow Harry to go down first. He kept his wand out and ready as he descended the rickety wooden steps and found himself in a perfectly ordinary basement. Cement floor, whitewashed cinder block walls, a battered worktable, an old shelf with a few dented paint cans, a furnace. Absolutely nothing else.

"Clear!" Ron called back up to Malfoy. "There's nothing down here."

"Of course there’s something down here," Malfoy said, slowly climbing down. "Why go through the bother to hide it if there's nothing to hide down here?"

As he had in the kitchen, Malfoy slowly walked the perimeter of the room, searching for signs of spellwork. He stopped before an entirely unremarkable stretch of wall.

"Ah," Malfoy said, sounding very pleased. "Here we are."

Harry looked at the perfectly ordinary wall. Whitewashed cinder blocks exactly like the other three. But if Malfoy said he saw something there, then Harry knew better than to doubt it.

Malfoy waved his wand, eyes going a little distant as he concentrated. "Oh, Thomas, you clever bastard," he said. "This'll take me a bit. He's layered all sorts of nasty surprises in here, I'll have to go slowly."

"Surprises?" Harry asked, exchanging a look with Ron.

"Curses," Malfoy said. "Boiling Blood Curse, Liquefying Lung Curse… oh, this one will literally turn a person inside out. Honestly, that's just overkill. And such a mess."

He went silent after that, and Harry stood by with his wand clenched in his hand. Not that he didn't trust Malfoy to do his job, but he'd never dealt well with standing aside and letting someone else put themself in harm's way.

But that was the job sometimes, so Harry watched and waited, a Shield Charm on the tip of his tongue. He didn't know whether it would help, but without knowing the exact curse to counter, it'd be the best he could do if he was quick enough to fire it off.

Nearly twenty long minutes later, the wall wavered and a doorway appeared. In his arrogance—which, admittedly, was pretty well-earned if it'd taken Malfoy this long to crack his protection—there wasn't even a door. Malfoy took another few minutes to make absolutely certain that there was nothing else, and stepped aside.

Harry and Ron flipped a coin to see who'd go through first, and Harry won. He couldn't help tensing up as he stepped through the doorway into the dark room beyond, and relief sluiced through him when nothing happened. A _Lumos_ lit it up, and—

"Holy shit," he said, staring at the shelves upon shelves upon _shelves_. "He's got an Undetectable Extension Charm here, it looks like. This place is bloody _huge_.”

And every inch of it was crowded with stuff. Malfoy certainly had his work cut out for him.

"Bloody hell," Ron said.

"Bloody hell," Malfoy echoed, sounding absolutely delighted. He set his case down just inside the doorway and popped it open, and took out his gloves. "Well then, let's get to work."

\- - -x- - -

Usually Harry enjoyed watching Malfoy work, but there wasn't much in the way of magic down here, so it was just Malfoy loading item after item into his charmed cotton bags and taking extensive notes on what he'd found and was transporting. It took hours, and they sent the Junior Aurors off around lunchtime to get them something to eat. Malfoy paused just long enough to wolf down his sandwich and then went straight back to work.

It was close to supper when he finally cleared out the last shelf.

"Well," Malfoy said, sealing the last bag and carefully settling it into the crate. "I'd say that does it here."

"Thank god," Harry said, slipping out his pocket watch to check the time. "We've missed dinner."

"To the pub then? You've been such lovely assistants, I'll buy the first round," Malfoy said.

"Can't," Ron said. "I've got dinner reservations with Hermione tonight. But you two ought to go on without me."

Harry squinted at Ron, because this was the first he'd heard of it. Their anniversary had been last month, and it wasn't near anyone's birthday, and their standing every-other-week date night was on Fridays.

"Hm, not much point in going out with just two," Malfoy said, looking over at Harry. "Come over to mine, then?"

"Sure," Harry said, hoping he didn't sound too overeager.

This wouldn't be the first time he'd been to Malfoy's flat, but Malfoy tended to keep his personal space to himself, so invitations were few and far between. Which was a shame, because Harry loved Malfoy's flat. He'd never quite been able to put his finger on it, but there was something wonderfully home-y about it that made something in the back of Harry's brain go blissfully pliant, a wonderful unwinding of tension that he was never really aware that he carried until it was suddenly gone.

It might be the decor; though there wasn't a single stone block or hanging tapestry in sight, something about the place had always reminded Harry of Hogwarts. Or maybe it was just that Malfoy's place wasn't Grimmauld. Harry had lived there for eight years now, but had never quite settled. Sometimes he thought about moving, but it seemed a bit silly to own a whole house and then go live somewhere else. Plus, Harry had seen what Ron and Hermione went through when they were looking for a place of their own, and he had no desire whatsoever to face the London real estate market himself.

"Go on, I can wrap up here and send the two Juniors along," Ron said, heading back upstairs.

"Well then," Malfoy said, picking up his case and offering his elbow, "Shall we?"

Harry's heart gave a funny little thrill as he reached out and linked his arm securely through Malfoy's. Then the world twisted in on itself and they appeared in the Atrium of the Ministry with a pop.

"Just have to hand this off and we can be on our way."

Harry tagged along to the AL office, where the handoff only took a couple of minutes. Cerise, the Senior AL who worked Evidence Processing, cheerfully took the case from Malfoy, had him sign off on its delivery, and shooed them out so she could get to work.

Then it was back down to the Atrium, and Malfoy Apparated them to the hallway outside his flat.

He unlocked the front door, and Harry followed Malfoy inside. Immediately he felt a little of the tension drain from his shoulders even as a different sort of tension swelled in the pit of his stomach. Because now he and Malfoy were alone together.

Not that they'd never been alone together before, but Harry sometimes had a difficult time convincing himself that just because Malfoy clearly had no sort of romantic interest in him and just because nothing had ever happened any of the other times they'd been alone together before, that this time wouldn't be different.

"Go on and make yourself comfortable. I'll be back in a moment," Malfoy said, those clever fingers of his already working open the buttons of his heavy uniform robes as he disappeared down the hall.

Harry stared after him, then started in on the buttons of his own robes. He shucked them from his shoulders and hung them on the coat rack by the door, then kicked off his boots. He spared a moment to wish that he'd bothered to change out of the tee shirt he'd slept in—an old Holyhead Harpies shirt worn ridiculously soft with years and use—but at least his jeans weren't bad. They were the ones that made his thighs and arse look nice. And oh, his socks not only matched, but neither one had holes.

Not that Harry ever had any hope of impressing Malfoy, but there was some small part of him that wanted to try. Most of the time Harry could keep it in check, but matching hole-less socks seemed a harmless enough outlet, so he let himself feel good about it for a moment. When it came to Malfoy and this pesky unrequited _thing_ Harry had going on, he'd learned to take whatever victories he could.

He wandered into the living room and flopped down on the sofa, wriggling a bit and sighing. Harry had no plans to move out of Grimmauld, but really, he ought to invest in some better furniture at the very least. His own sofa was nowhere near this comfortable.

Malfoy returned a couple of minutes later. He'd removed his uniform robes, and was wearing a button-up and trousers, which were the sort of thing Harry knew he usually wore beneath his robes to work. The trousers were charcoal, and the shirt a light shade of barely-there blue that made Malfoy's pale skin look particularly nice and sort of glow-y. He had the sleeves rolled partway up, showing off his tattoos. A row of runes were inked in a line up each forearm; each one was as neat as ink stamped on a page on his right arm, and a little more muddled on his left where they crossed the pale pink scar of his Dark Mark.

Harry was sure they had some meaning, because Malfoy was the sort of person who never did anything without it meaning something, but Malfoy had never brought it up and it'd always struck Harry as a little too personal to ask.

"Firewhisky or wine?" Malfoy asked, heading for the liquor cabinet that stood against the wall.

"Dealer's choice," Harry said, and Malfoy went for the whisky.

He picked up a heavy cut crystal decanter and a couple of rocks glasses and carried them over to the sofa. Harry followed him over and sat down as Malfoy set the glasses down on the coffee table and removed the stopper from the decanter.

"So why are Weasley and Granger going out tonight?" Malfoy asked as he poured. "Their anniversary was last month, and neither of their birthdays are now."

Harry shrugged a little as he reached for the glass of Firewhisky Malfoy held out for him. "Date night?" he suggested.

"It's Tuesday, Potter."

Sometimes it was annoying how well Malfoy knew Ron.

"This was my first day off in two and a half weeks," Harry said. "You're lucky I know what month it is."

That much was true, at least. Really, he'd only known that today was Tuesday because he'd mistakenly thought _yesterday_ was Tuesday and had been tremendously disappointed that the canteen hadn't had treacle tart.

"Right, the glamourous life of an Auror on a vital case," Malfoy said. He dropped the stopper back into the mouth of the decanter, set it aside on the coffee table, and took up his own glass.

"Do you ever miss it?" Harry asked. He'd been curious for a while; sometimes it seemed like Malfoy did, sometimes it seemed like Malfoy didn't. He'd never quite worked up the courage to ask about it before now, but in the peacefulness of Malfoy's home, the question came easily.

Malfoy took a sip of his whisky and exhaled a faint stream of smoke from his nostrils before he answered. "Sometimes," he said.

There was a long pause, and Harry thought that would be all Malfoy had to say about it. As much as they all used him leaving active duty as an excuse to make fun of Ron, the real reason they were no longer partners was far grimmer. Malfoy had taken a Blasting Curse point-blank to the chest in his third year as an Auror. He'd spent several months in St Mungo's as Healers carefully rebuilt his ribs and regrew his lungs, and though they'd done an admirable job putting him back together again, curses always left a permanent mark. Malfoy couldn't run without wheezing, and an Auror who couldn't chase down suspects had no place in the field.

Luckily, he'd always had an aptitude for the more delicate sorts of magic; he'd returned to work as an Auror Liaison, joined up with Crime Scene Processing, hit the ground running and hadn't looked back, at least as far as Harry could tell. The change had coincided with Harry's previous partner's retirement, and he'd become Ron's partner in Malfoy's stead.

"But… it's complicated. I'm good at what I do now. Certainly better than I ever was at being an Auror." Malfoy paused, idly swirled the whisky in his glass. "And… honestly, I don't miss the danger."

Truth be told, Harry thought he'd like to leave that part of the job behind as well. With the advantage of nearly a decade and being in a much healthier state both mentally and emotionally, Harry sometimes thought that he never should have joined up at all. But he'd been depressed and directionless post-war, and had joined the Aurors because that was what everyone expected of him, and he’d already known he'd be good at it. It had been a direction to go in, a nice neat path laid out before him, and he'd grabbed for it with both hands. And now that he'd been in the field for a while and seen the sort of dangers Aurors routinely faced, he was only sticking it out because he just couldn't stand to leave Ron out there by himself.

"But I do miss the camaraderie, the partnership," Malfoy continued. "I miss feeling like I'm actively making a difference, not just… coming along afterward to help clean up once the real work is already finished."

"You make a difference now," Harry said. "The evidence you collect helps the Wizengamot to levy a fair sentence. And more importantly, you make sure that innocent people don't get framed for crimes they didn't commit." Malfoy's expression was inscrutable, and Harry reached over to touch his knee. "Malfoy," he said. "The work you do matters."

"You know, when you say it like that, I believe you," Malfoy said, then shook his head and smiled a little. "And most of the time I do. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise, if I thought it didn't matter. But as I said…"

"Complicated," Harry finished for him.

"Right."

He reached up to brush a lock of hair aside, and Harry's gaze caught on Malfoy's tattoos. He didn't quite realise he was staring until Malfoy spoke up.

"You're always looking," Malfoy said.

Harry started and looked quickly away, and took a sip of his whisky to hide his flush. "Well, I've always been curious."

"Curious?"

"About why you got them, and what they mean," Harry said. It'd been shortly after Malfoy had been released from St Mungo's, and at the time he hadn't known Malfoy too well and had assumed that it was some sort of new-lease-on-life thing. He'd got to know Malfoy better than that since then and thought that there had to be a deeper reason.

"Oh," said Malfoy, faintly surprised. "That's right, you never took Ancient Runes at school…" He turned his forearms over, showing them to Harry. "They're for channeling magic. I still need my wand, of course, but many of the spells I work with as an AL are extremely delicate and difficult to balance, and these help me to cast."

Slowly, carefully in case Malfoy wanted to pull away, Harry reached out. Malfoy didn't pull back, and Harry hovered his palm over the rune at Malfoy's wrist. Though they weren't quit touching, Harry could feel the heat of Malfoy's skin gathering in the space between them. And then—

"I can feel it," Harry breathed, awed. This close, the tattoo was brimming over with magic, curling through Harry's senses like a half-remembered song, leaving him struggling to place the tune until—suddenly—it clicked. "Strength."

Malfoy was watching him intently. "Go on," he said.

Harry let his hand slide up Malfoy's forearm to the next rune. "Focus… and control… and… erm…” This next one was harder to identify. "…clarity?"

"Close. That one's precision."

The folded-up cuff of Malfoy's shirt sleeve hid the next one, and Harry wanted to push it up, to keep going. Instead he forced himself to take his hand away.

"How does it work?" Harry asked. Already, he missed the hum of Malfoy's magic beneath his palm, and he rubbed it against the thigh of his trousers.

"It's the ink," Malfoy said, still watching Harry intently. "It's made from the ashes of hawthorn and unicorn hair. My magic recognises it as an extension of my wand, treats it just like any other conduit."

"That's amazing," Harry said. "I've never heard of anything like it."

"You wouldn't have," Malfoy said, a touch of smugness in his voice. "I invented it. Not much cause for it, unfortunately. It has to be done entirely by oneself, to avoid contaminating the tattoos with outside magics, and in any case, the vast majority of wizards only work with spells for which a wand is sufficient."

"Still…" Harry said. "I think it's amazing."

Malfoy watched him for a moment, then drew in a shivery breath. He pushed his right sleeve higher and pointed to a rune inked just inside his elbow. "Tell me, Potter. What's this one?"

Harry reached out again, fingertips hovering just above Malfoy's skin. "I… I don't."

"You know it," Malfoy said. He lay his left hand over the back of Harry's and gently pressed it to his arm.

"I…" Harry closed his eyes. It was right there, right on the edge of his mind, maddeningly within reach if only he could just— "Luck," he said.

"And it hasn't failed me yet," Malfoy told him, and then kissed him hard.

Harry's eyes flew open and he jerked back, surprised, and then instantly regretted it. Because Malfoy had been kissing him— _kissing him!_ —and Harry had stopped.

"You want this," Malfoy said intently while Harry's brain was still whirling uselessly. "Potter, I know you want this."

"Yeah," Harry said, gaze flicking down to Malfoy's mouth. "Yeah, I do."

And even though Malfoy had kissed him first, it still took every ounce of Harry's famed Gryffindor courage to lean back in.

Malfoy met him halfway, his mouth warm and soft beneath Harry's lips, and oh, he'd just known Malfoy would be good at this. He kissed slowly but firmly, exploring the shape of Harry's mouth with his own, and Harry found himself practically melting into it. It was so much better than anything Harry had dared imagine.

Dimly, he became aware that he was still holding his glass of whisky and, without breaking the kiss, he reached out to set it aside. The bottom of the glass hit the edge of the coffee table and it slipped from Harry's grasp, shattering on the floor.

Harry tried to pull away to _Reparo_ it and clean up the spill, but Malfoy growled, "Fuck it," and fisted his hands in Harry's shirt and _yanked_ , pulling Harry down on top of him.

It took them a few seconds to get themselves situated, with Harry ending up with his hips tucked snugly between Malfoy's thighs. He wasn't hard yet, and neither was Malfoy, but he couldn't help rolling his hips against him anyhow, and was thrilled to feel Malfoy thrust back against him.

Then they were kissing again, Malfoy's mouth opening beneath his, and Harry gave a soft moan at the first sweep of Malfoy's tongue against his. Malfoy's hands splayed across his back, holding him closer, and Harry reached back, groping at Malfoy's leg until he could grab his knee and hitch his leg up around Harry's hips.

"Do you want to?" Malfoy asked.

Harry blinked at him, distracted by how red and wet Malfoy's mouth looked from kissing. "Do I what?"

Malfoy's mouth curled into a smirk and he rolled his hips against Harry's, and oh, he was hard now.

"Fuck," Malfoy said. "I'd like to."

And Harry just had to kiss him again. "Here?" he asked. "Or bedroom?"

"Mm," Malfoy said, leaning up to nip at Harry's bottom lip before pushing him back. "Bedroom for now, I think. We can christen my sofa later."

Harry grinned. "Planning on going more than once?"

"Maybe," Malfoy said, levering himself out from under Harry and standing up. He held out his hand. "Though I hope we're both on the same page about this being the beginning of something more long-lived than just tonight."

Harry's heart leapt. "I'd like that too," he said.

"See, there?" Malfoy said. "We'll have plenty of time to defile my sofa later."

"Defile," Harry echoed, and let Malfoy tow him down the hallway. "What happened to christen?"

"Something tells me that my poor sofa will never recover after you've had your way with me on it," Malfoy said.

He pushed open the door at the end of the hall and led Harry into his bedroom, flicking his wand in a wordless _Lumos_ that lit the lamps. It was as neat as the rest of Malfoy's place, with no clutter on the tops of the bureau or bedside tables or writing desk. The walls were a pale colour caught between blue and grey and purple that made Harry think of twilight, and two large windows let in hazy yellow light from the streetlights outside. A massive bed dominated the stretch of wall between them, the duvet stretched neatly over the mattress and the pillows plumped.

A flick of his wand closed the curtains, and then Malfoy turned to Harry and yanked his shirt up and off.

"Hey," Harry said, making a grab for it as Malfoy made to toss it aside. When Malfoy had dragged it over his head, his glasses had gone with it, and Harry didn't want to miss a single detail. He'd barely got them back on his face before Malfoy was kissing him again.

But that was alright; Harry was a fully-trained Auror and could multitask. Without breaking the kiss, Harry worked open the buttons of Malfoy's shirt one by one, then slid it gently from his shoulders. Malfoy's hands were sweeping in broad lines over Harry's back like he was trying to memorise every inch of him, and Harry shivered. Fuck, it felt good.

Taking Malfoy's lead, Harry slid his hand around Malfoy's waist, pressed his palms against the small of Malfoy's back. He let them drift down, over the fine wool fabric of his trousers, mapping out the curve of his arse, the bony jut of his hips. Thumbing his hipbone with one hand, Harry slid the other around, tracing out the hard line of Malfoy's cock, and felt Malfoy shudder against him.

Harry cupped his hand around it, pressing a little harder, and Malfoy's hips jerked. His hands left Harry's back and went to his jeans, yanking at the buttons fastening the fly.

"Fuck, why won't these—" Malfoy gasped, stepping back so he could see what he was doing, and Harry started to reach out to undo Malfoy's trousers, but stopped at the sight of him.

Harry hadn't seen Malfoy with his shirt off since they'd both been Auror trainees together, and it was a shock to see the gnarled knot of scar tissue blasted across his ribs. He'd known it was there—Harry was intimately familiar with curse scars—but when he'd imagined it, he'd imagined something similar to the lightning bolt across his own forehead. At the time, Harry had only been relieved that Malfoy was still alive because he could have died. Now, faced with this scar, it really sunk in that Malfoy _should_ have.

"Potter," Malfoy said gently.

"Sorry," Harry said quickly. "Sorry, I—"

"It's all right," Malfoy said, gently tracing the oval scar seared into Harry's chest. "I survived. So did you."

Harry caught Malfoy's hand in his own and pressed a gentle kiss to his fingertips. "I'm glad," he said.

"So am I," Malfoy said. "Both because of the whole saving-us-all thing, and also because I'm now getting sex out of it."

That made Harry laugh, and he leaned in to kiss Malfoy, then herded him the rest of the way to the bed. Malfoy detoured to the bedside table where he produced a jar of lube from the top drawer and tossed it to Harry.

"So," Harry said. "Which way are we doing this?"

"That depends," Malfoy said. "Do you want it hard and fast, or do you want it slow and intense?"

"Uh," Harry said, his brain practically melting as he tried to imagine both of those at once. "Do I really have to choose?"

An amused little smile tugged at the corner of Malfoy's mouth. "For now, I'm afraid so."

"What's the difference, then?"

"Hard and fast, you fuck me; slow and intense, I fuck you," Malfoy said, and his smirk faded. "You know that my injury affected my lungs. However," He leaned in so close that his lips brushed the shell of Harry's ear, "I am very— _very_ —good at taking cock."

"Right," Harry said, giving Malfoy a shove so that he toppled over backwards. "We're doing that."

"Seeing how well I take cock?"

"Seeing how well you take _my_ cock," Harry said, hooking his fingers in the waistband of Malfoy's pants and drawing them down his thighs.

His cock flopped heavily against his belly, flushed dark pink and glistening with precome at the tip. Harry dragged his fingers up the underside, reveling in the feel of how hard it was, how hot, how soft and delicate the skin felt. He heard Malfoy's breath catch, and Harry wrapped his hand around the hard length of his cock and gave it a nice firm squeeze.

Malfoy grabbed Harry by the hair and yanked him down into a searing kiss, and even though Harry still had his hand on Malfoy's cock, Malfoy took control. He arched his body up beneath Harry, fucking impatiently into Harry's fist. His hands slid down Harry's waist and caught the waistband, tugging them down, off his cock and over his arse and down his thighs. With Harry on top of them he couldn't get them any farther down than that. But a moment later, Malfoy hitched his foot up and nudged it into Harry's leg, and it took Harry a moment to work out that Malfoy was trying to catch hold of his pants with his toes and draw them down the rest of the way.

His foot nudging at Harry's leg reminded Harry ridiculously of a dog scratching its side and he broke into breathless laughter.

Malfoy left off trying to get Harry's pants down. "Is something funny?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Harry pressed a kiss to that eyebrow and smiled at him, and in response Malfoy's look softened into something softer, something sweeter. "I'm so glad to be here right now," Harry said.

"I'd be gladder if we could move things along," Malfoy said, swiping at Harry's pants with his foot again.

They separated briefly to get rid of their pants, and when Harry finished wrestling them off his ankle and tossing them aside, he found Malfoy sprawled on his back, looking up at him expectantly. The desire that'd been burning through Harry burst into an inferno, and fuck, he needed to be inside Malfoy _yesterday_.

Harry fumbled the lid off the jar of lube and scooped out a dollop. A wordless, wandless spell heated it up to body temperature, and he brought his fingers down to Malfoy's arse.

" _Oh_ ," Malfoy gasped at the first warm touch against his arsehole.

"Good?" Harry asked, rubbing gently, spreading the wetness around.

"Don't stop," Malfoy told him, and Harry didn't.

He slid in a finger, and the warmth of the lube had nothing on the unbelievable heat of Malfoy's body. It had been a while since Harry had last done this with another person, and he took a moment to relish how Malfoy felt inside, how soft and smooth and tight, and to savour the knowledge that in a few short minutes he'd be pushing his cock in there.

While Harry was getting him ready, Malfoy had reached down and taken his cock in hand, and was wanking it slowly, his fist moving in time with the slow movements of Harry's finger inside him. Harry pulled nearly all the way out, then pushed back in with two.

Malfoy groaned and hitched his legs wider, and Harry's cock throbbed. Fuck, but he was gorgeous like this, all flushed pink with his hair mussed and his eyes gone all hazy. He was looking up at Harry like he was in love, and Harry's heart nearly burst with longing. He wanted that, he wanted that so much. It was hard enough to believe that he was here at all, in Malfoy’s flat, in Malfoy’s bed. It felt unbelievably greedy to ask for more than this, but _fuck_ he wanted.

 _All in due time_ , he reminded himself. He and Malfoy had agreed on _hard and fast_ ; there would be time for the rest of it later.

Harry gave him just a little bit longer to adjust to two fingers, then withdrew.

More lube, another Warming Charm, and Harry had himself slicked up and ready. He moved higher up the bed, one hand wedged behind the back of Malfoy's knee to push his leg up. With his other hand, Harry reached down to steady his cock as he lined it up with Malfoy's arse.

"Ready?" he asked.

"More than," Malfoy said, rolling his hips so that the head of Harry's cock rubbed over his hole.

Harry pushed inside him, and his eyes slipped shut. These first few moments were his favourite part of sex, that first tight slide into someone else's body. The intimacy of another person letting him in. And this was his first time with Malfoy; Harry wanted to remember this for the rest of his life.

His hips nudged up against Malfoy's arse as he bottomed out, and then stayed still, eyes squeezed shut, breathing hard as he fought not to come right away.

Malfoy's hand carded gently through his hair, and his steady breathing helped the immediacy of Harry's climax ebb.

"Ready when you are, Potter," Malfoy said.

Harry gave him a quick kiss, then drew back slowly before pushing back in. Malfoy sighed and rolled his hips up to meet Harry, and Harry reached down between them, holding him still.

He thrust again, more sharply this time, and steadily built up his rhythm until he was pounding into Malfoy. A flare of pain cut through the haze of his pleasure as Malfoy's fingernails bit into Harry's back. He was making sounds, little throaty moans that punctuated each thrust. His eyes were squeezed shut and his head tilted back, his flushed neck on display. Harry leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to Malfoy's throat, then shoved a hand down between them and wrapped his fingers around Malfoy's cock.

Malfoy shuddered full-body and his lips moved, soundlessly begging _Please, please, please_ , and before Harry had a chance to do anything more than what he was already doing, Malfoy tensed up and came all over Harry's fist. His arse clenched down on Harry's cock, squeezing him tight, and Harry bit down on Malfoy's collarbone as he followed him over the edge.

Together, they collapsed into a sweaty, sticky tangle. Harry's mouth pressed slack to Malfoy's throat, and Malfoy had his fingers back in Harry's hair, rubbing idly at the nape of his neck.

"Well," Harry said after he'd caught his breath and his brains felt a little less melted. He pushed himself up on an elbow so he could look down at Malfoy. "You were right. You are _excellent_ at taking cock."

"Never doubt me again," Malfoy said without opening his eyes, sounding so lazy and fucked-out that Harry squeezed him tight and pressed a kiss to his shoulder just because he could. "Are you staying the night?"

"Figured I would," Harry said. "Didn't we make plans for another round?"

"So we did," Malfoy said. He still hadn't opened his eyes, but his mouth curled up in a smile.

"Well then," Harry said, as if that settled that, and by the way that Malfoy's hold on him tightened, he supposed that it really did.

\- - -x- - -

They dozed together for a while before they recovered enough to start round two. They stayed in bed, sparing Malfoy's poor sofa for now. They kissed for what felt like ages, their erections almost an afterthought, until Malfoy reached for the jar of lube, stole Harry's trick with the Warming Charm, and pushed his fingers into Harry's arse.

And _oh_ , it had been even longer since Harry had done this, and those long months had made him forget how shockingly intimate it felt to let someone inside him like this. And it being _Malfoy_ , whom he'd wanted for so long now, took it to a whole different level.

Malfoy worked him slowly open, getting him dripping wet, ready to be fucked. Malfoy's own cock was hard and leaking, and it flashed through Harry's mind that they'd only done a quick clean-up before they dozed off and Malfoy still had Harry's come in his arse from their first round. Harry didn't know why he found that so hot but he felt like he'd never been this turned on in his life.

And then Malfoy finally took his fingers out, gave them a cursory wipe on his thigh before he nudged the head of his cock up against Harry's arse, paused for a moment, and then slid home.

Harry groaned aloud at the feel of being filled up. "Fuck, that's good," he sighed.

Malfoy laughed a little breathlessly and kissed him. "That's the point, you do realise."

He began to move, a long slide out and thrust back in. He kept it slow and intense, just as he'd promised. He kept up a steady, measured pace, rocking into Harry's body, working him up little by little, driving him inexorably closer to the edge.

Harry's orgasm caught him almost by surprise; one second he was hovering right on the brink, and the next he was tipping over, pleasure washing over him in waves. He was dimly aware of Malfoy coming too, the steady throb of his cock deep within him, and all Harry could do was hold on tight.

After a few minutes and a few Cleaning Charms, Malfoy turned off the lights and opened the curtains again, letting in the soft glow of the streetlights outside. Harry didn't quite remember dozing off after that, but some time later he half-woke to Malfoy sitting up.

"Mmph," Harry said as Malfoy slipped out of bed. He tried to make a grab for him but couldn't get his arm untangled from the bedsheets fast enough. Malfoy disappeared into the en suite, and Harry rolled over into the warm place in the bedsheets that Malfoy had just vacated, pressed his face into Malfoy's pillow, and snuggled back down.

"You're on my side," Malfoy said when he returned a few minutes later, nudging at Harry's hip with a knee.

"Mmhm," Harry murmured sleepily. "Kept it warm for you."

Malfoy let him keep it, and went around to the other side of the bed and slid in, scooting over until he was snuggled up against Harry's side. Harry rolled over and pushed his way into Malfoy's arms, thought briefly about starting round three, and then decided that it could wait until it was properly morning.

"I'm so glad we're here," Harry murmured into Malfoy's shoulder.

Malfoy's arms tightened around him, and he pressed a soft kiss to Harry's temple. "So am I, Potter, so am I."

Tomorrow they'd both have to get up and go back to work. Ron would surely be insufferable about the whole thing when he found out. They'd have to deal with paperwork and coworkers, and Harry would have to go through his day pretending that his whole world hadn't just shifted.

But for now the bed was soft and Malfoy was warm, and Harry smiled to himself as he left himself drift off.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment below. ♥
> 
> This work is part of HD Erised, an on-going anonymous fest. The creator will be revealed January 7th.


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